The Urban Meyer Era ended in a hurry for the Jacksonville Jaguars when owner Shad Khan fired the coach just 13 games into his first season following a lot of off-field controversies and a lot of on-field failures.
At the time, Khan seemed to be trying to avoid the firing even as reports and rumors swirled around the franchise. But after it was reported that he’d kicked a player and verbally threatened assistant coaches, it was too much to take.
Khan has mostly stayed silent on the issue since then. However, he’s finally speaking up about what went down and why he decided he needed to end Urban’s era so quickly.
“When you lose the respect, the trust, and an issue of truthfulness, how can you work with someone like that?” Jaguars owner Shad Khan told Jarrett Bell of USA Today. “It’s not possible.”
“It was not about wins and losses,” said Khan. “I think when you know someone is not truthful, how can you be around someone, OK? We had Doug Marrone here four years. We had Gus Bradley here four years. I have nothing but the utmost respect and friendship with them. That’s why they got the time, because it wasn’t a matter about respect or truth. It was a matter of wins and losses over four years. This is much bigger than that.”
According to the piece, the franchise and Meyer still have not been able to come to an agreement about his buyout. The Jaguars reportedly don’t want to pay Meyer the balance on his five-year contract worth around $10-12 million per year as they are contending he was fired for cause following all the reports and incidents.
Given that Meyer is expected to return to Fox Sports as an analyst in the upcoming college football season, it’ll be interesting to see if he gives his side of the situation and whether or not there’s a legal battle brewing between the two sides.
In the meantime, if Khan wants to blame anyone for the personnel move, he can look in the mirror.
